Works with their own pages:
Crossovers
- In Avengers: Infinite Wars, after various Avengers assist the Republic in destroying Ultron's base at the Citadel, a former prison used by the Sith, Ultron mocks the idea that destroying that facility will have any impact on his larger plans, as he affirms that he has thousands of such facilities all over the galaxy.
- Code Prime: When Lelouch vi Britannia founded the Black Knights, one of his goals was to avenge his mother, Marianne vi Britannia, due to how his father, Charles zi Britannia, had dismissed her assassination. But in the R2 chapter, "Forward The Light Brigade", Marianne reveals her involvement in the Ragnorök Connection, and how when Lelouch and Nunnally were thought to have been killed in the invasion of Japan, she and Charles dismissed their deaths, as they believed that they would be reunited through the Ragnorök Connection. Lelouch doesn’t take that revelation well, as it makes him realize that his quest to avenge her was pointless due to how she left her children to die.
- In Dark Sun Resurgent, Gwyndolin displays some insecurity and mild gender dysphoria to have been forced to perform as a daughter, merely for being born a Moon deity, but nonetheless believed his father knew what he was doing — until he met several lunar gods from Earth, since one of them is the fully masculine Tsukuyomi. Gwyndolin suffers a screaming meltdown as he realizes he could have been acknowledged and raised as a boy, and he still would have been alright.
- Fate of the Clans:
- Because of Beast, winning the Holy Grail would mean the extinction of humanity. That means every death and anguish caused in pursuit of the Grail was meaningless.
- Justeaze spent 1,000 years trying to regain Heaven's Feel. The Greater Grail was created at the cost of her life to do that. Unfortunately, seven Servant souls were needed to fill it. The Three Families didn't know this would cause the Grail's contents to be spiritual. This means one of the seven Servants is needed to interact with it. Only Justeaze herself can bypass this with the Dress of Heaven. The Three Families gave up their pursuit after learning this.
- Cú Chulainn genuinely wanted to keep Mikoto alive through the War, possibly unconsciously compelled by what happened to Bazett, enough to where he was willing to give up his life to do that...only for Mikoto to die by the Servant's own hand.
- Cú Chulainn Alter believes this about the Counter Forces' efforts to preserve humanity since the human race will go extinct one day anyway.
- In The Good Hunter, Sasha has spent the majority of her life raising both human and monster children who lost their parents from the ongoing conflict between The Order and the Demon Lord. The Fall of Lescatie, an event she ironically caused to happen, renders her efforts moot when the Order Inquisition burned down her orphanage. The children under her care has dwindled to a small group of five, as a majority of them are either taken by the monsters, or presumably killed by Order soldiers. On a brighter note, by the time the plot moves to Sheffield, she seems to have overcome her Heroic BSoD and started a new orphanage. As this fanfic is currently ongoing, time will tell if this lasts.
- Harry and the Shipgirls saw five Abyssal fleets unite just to take down the Northern Ocean Princess after Hoppou refused to go along with their plans for humanity. Not only did they lose six Abyssals for every member of Hoppou's fleet, enabling the shipgirl forces to easily mop them up afterwards, but the survivors of Hoppou's fleet were able to build their forces back up, and Hoppou survived and was adopted by Nagato of the Big Seven.
- In the mass Middle-Earth/Arrowverse/Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover Heroes stand united
, not only does Thanos use the Gauntlet to revive basically every old foe the heroes have ever fought as part of his army, from Adrian Chase up to Sauron himself, but when the heroes have defeated most of their foes Thanos just uses the Gauntlet to bring them back again. - In Imaginary Seas, Percy does his best to minimize civilian collateral during his battles, but he soon finds that it's all for naught, as succeeding in his quest will destroy the Lostbelt and wipe everyone in it from existence. Despite this, he stubbornly sticks to his morals until Olympus' forces rally the populace against him, forcing him to reluctantly destroy everything on Eris Island with Nine Lives to obscure his and Chiron's escape from Artemis' and Zeus' prying eyes.
- In Kwami Magi Homura Magica, the actions of the Incubators are this because of Plagg. While the concept of entropy is a real thing, as a force of destruction Plagg ultimately has control of it, and will not let the universe end so long as he wishes it stays around, and he has no interest in enabling its destruction. As a result of this, and the fact that the Incubators can't see Kwami, and do not believe they exist, every Magical Girl's suffering has been for an ultimately pointless venture that's actually damaging the universe by shoving more energy into it and essentially bursting its pipes, creating dangerous oddities in the timestream like Cat Blanc in the process. Naturally when the Kwami tell Homura the former, as they did not know the latter at the time, Homura is beyond furious at how every one of her friends' deaths was for a pointless cause as the Incubator's fight against entropy was worse than useless.
- Metal Gear: Green:
- The disaster in Africa was spinned into a Pyrrhic Victory. In actuality, it was the needless slaughter of 10,000 heroes, followed by thousands more being forced to retire early or were captured for nothing, with the estimated losses being around 20,000 heroes.
- A Played for Laughs variant when Nezu explains to Ocelot that he intentionally programmed the robots to target him first in a robot uprising to scare the students and For the Lulz. Ocelot is left flabbergasted that all the preparations he had made for this situation was for nothing.
- The Night Unfurls:
- Back in Yharnam, Kyril met several survivors, tried to keep them safe, and hoped to escape with them. It didn't matter in the end, for all of them lost their minds and, in turn, their lives.
- Olga, who wants vengeance against humanity for the enslavement of dark elves, spent centuries before the start of the series engaging in warfare with Celestine. In order to gather more power, she sacrificed Loraine, one of her loyal cities, to the Always Chaotic Evil orcs, subjecting the people there to Rape, Pillage, and Burn. Kyril Sutherland's arrival, which directly led to her defeat, renders all her efforts moot. Even if one discounts Kyril's involvement, considering how the root cause is the Fantastic Racism between humans and dark elves, it is suffice to say that the Forever War barely changed the situation for good, if not for worse, as shown from how it still persists over the course of the story. Furthermore, she would eventually have to deal with the repercussions from what she did to Loraine's people. On the bright side, Olga acknowledging that this trope has occurred is what kick-starts her Heel–Face Turn and her endeavours to make amends one small step at a time.
- In Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, the Citadel Council cooks up a plan to fortify Council space against an Alien Invasion (specifically, the Flood) by having Aria T'Loak's pirates hold the line in the Terminus without risking Council assets. Between attacks by a seeming Physical God Sarah a Force-sensitive Siren and the aliens' ability to crash through everything, the plan fails miserably. Hundreds of millions die in non-Council, non-Terminus space, and Council space ultimately falls, though an unlikely savior gets most of the heroes out alive...
- Shadows over Meridian:
- Nerissa spent years manipulating the Rebellion and Phobos to get the Heart of Meridian. But Jade (whom she turned into a fugitive on Meridian) defeats her, putting her in a coma by means of a Leech Khan, and reveals her plans to everyone, meaning all of her years of manipulation and sacrifice have become meaningless."How...how could...how can this be happening?!" She stared at Kage with utter contempt and hatred, "What...who...are you really?" As now more than ever those questions came to the forefront who was Kage really? How could she render all of years of machinations and work useless so easily?!
- The Rebellion itself is beginning to feel this way as events unfold, although its members are split on the why following Phobos' escape and alliance with Kage. One camp believes that all their work has been rendered moot, as little has improved under Elyon's rule, and now they are back to fighting the tyrant again; this gets deconstructed, as they are the more extremist faction of the Rebellion and believe that only extreme measures (such as summary execution of suspected Phobos loyalists) can ensure a lasting peace. This leaves the more reasonable and heroic members dismayed as they watch everything they've achieved become a Full-Circle Revolution as they face opposition from both their enemies and now their allies.
- Upon learning that the army she's part of has not only been repulsed from claiming Snowpoint by Jade and Phobos' forces but is being pulled back to the capital by Elyon as part of a consolidation to deal with the new threat of the Shadowkhan, Vera Bexley views it all as an utter failure of all the years of training and fighting she put towards her goal of revenge on the Mogriffs, putting her into a Heroic BSoD and driving her to go rogue to get her revenge regardless. Not only does her attempt to find and assassinate Metalbeak fail, but it leads to her and five other heirs of prestigious northern families being taken captive, which is advantageous in securing the north for Phobos. Refusing to recognize defeat and own up to her actions, she keeps trying to get her revenge, and by the time she finally realizes her folly, she's destroyed her friendship with the other noble heirs, and lost the functionality of one of her arms after she angers Jade by trying to assassinate her right after she decided to show her mercy.
- Nerissa spent years manipulating the Rebellion and Phobos to get the Heart of Meridian. But Jade (whom she turned into a fugitive on Meridian) defeats her, putting her in a coma by means of a Leech Khan, and reveals her plans to everyone, meaning all of her years of manipulation and sacrifice have become meaningless.
- The Weaver Option: Lorgar sacrifices his world to the Chaos Gods, guts the system's infrastructure, and invests every resource he has in a set of rituals meant to stop Malal's ascension and ensure the return of Slaanesh. His Crusade is broken, Malal ascends by coopting the very ritual meant to defeat him, and Slaanesh could never be revived. For his many failures, Lorgar receives the most ignoble fate of all, turned into a mindless Chaos Spawn.
- Weight of the World: In The Depth of Deception, the entire Kuchinashi mission was pointless. Salem's forces found Mistral first so Yang's group entered Kuchinashi, hunted down Roman, and were captured for nothing. Not only that, but their absence from the City of Mistral let Salem's forces get the Relic of Knowledge and kill Neo/Mistral.
- Prince Heinel Vs The Barney Bunch (Voltes V/The Barney Bunch) opens with the Boazanians, as usual, trying to figure how to conquer the Earth. When The Barney Bunch arrive, they wonder if they can use them to their advantage, but it turns out they're nothing but a group of psychotic Depraved Homosexuals that try to absorb their power. Heinel and Katherine manage to defeat the Pube Muppet, but they forget to ask him how to defeat Voltes V, so they spend the next few minutes in awkward silence.
- Blackbird: Dinah Lance trades her older daughter Laurel to the League of Assassins in exchange for her younger daughter Sara's freedom, under the justification that she already lost Laurel when she allowed Sara to betray her by going on the Gambit with Oliver, figuring if she can't save both daughters, she might as well save the one who might still love her. Instead, all this does is cause her to lose both anyway, as that decision makes Sara a guilt-ridden wreck who is unable to forgive her mother for making the trade and herself for going along with it. Years later, after Oliver saves Laurel from the League with Sara's help, Sara immediately ditches Dinah for Quentin. With Sara gone, Laurel hating her, and Quentin almost certainly hating her as well when he learns the truth, Dinah has lost everything that once mattered to her, and only has herself to blame.
- Forging a Better Future: All of Team Arrow went to insane lengths to prevent Thea from being forced to join the League of Assassins, including having Oliver duel and kill Ra's al Ghul to save her. Alas, Thea is forced to join anyway after she refuses to train as a vigilante, reneging on Oliver's deal with Talia, unable to see the threat the League posed to her until it was too late.
- moral of the story (Nyame): Oliver's actions (namely, accidentally driving Laurel to suicide) not only render all the efforts to free Sara from the League and reunite the Lance family meaningless, but outright destroys their family all over again, this time for good. To emphasize that, each of the Lances are back to where they were before his return, except in an even worse state than they were before: Sara has returned to the League, now completely convinced she's a monster who belongs with them; Quentin is an even bigger drunk than he used to be and no longer has a job; Dinah has fled back to Central City, hating herself even more for her terrible parenting and having lost both Sara and Laurel; and a resurrected Laurel has been completely jaded by everything and has left Starling altogether. Laurel compares the entire situation to the Gambit, and seeing the results, it's a rather apt parallel.
- What It Takes:
- Discussed and defied. Laurel and Oliver both note that his being exposed as the real Arrow seems to make Roy's sacrifice be for nothing; but Oliver concludes that he is still alive and free to help the city, so it did accomplish that at least.
- Discussed when Sara is revived by Thea and regains her soul, fully bringing her back to life. While both Laurel and Quentin are overjoyed to have her back again, both bitterly reflect on how the reason for their estrangement — and indeed, the events of the story — is now completely gone, as if it never happened. Especially since that, in the end, it doesn't do anything to repair the damage that has already been done.
- Played straight with the Starling City Council, who go through the trouble of supporting the hunt for Laurel and alienating their constituents to please Darhk, for the sake of restoring the city and profiting off it. By the end of the fic, they've released hundreds of dangerous criminals out on the streets, the city is in more chaos than ever, Darhk is revealed to be an international terrorist with a plan to destroy the world and rule the ashes, and Laurel and the other vigilantes are pardoned and deputized as official federal agents for stopping him. In addition, the entire city government is put under investigation by the FBI for their complicity in Darhk's plans, all but guaranteeing that most of them are going to be removed from office if not outright jailed.
- Apples Equals Cyanide Equals Light: Near thinks everything he did to defeat Kira might have been for nothing, seeing how he became an almost immortal shinigami, pretty much unstoppable now.
- Courier's Mind: Rise of New Vegas:
- The Courier's attempts to get a disguise for his infiltration of the Powder Gangers' base turn out to be this, as they all see right through it and are willing to work with him anyway.
- During the clearing out the Nightkin part of the "Come Fly With Me" quest, The Courier goes out of his way to resolve things with the Davidson and the Nightkin diplomatically... only to end up killing them all along the way and as a result, Davidson at the end, anyway.
- The Raven's Plan: In this Peggy Sue fic, certain characters are forced to contend with how their actions and choices in the previous timeline led to their lives being utterly ruined.
- In the previous timeline, Stannis sacrificed his only living child and heir for a victory he never got. When the timeline is rebooted and everyone knows about it, his reputation is instantly destroyed. All his men abandon him, his best friend Davos loses all respect for him and takes Shireen with him (and Shireen also Remembers to boot, meaning Stannis has lost her love too), and his wife kills herself a second time out of shame. Having lost everything with nothing to show for it drives Stannis to drink heavily before he arrives at the Red Keep and is thrown into a Black Cell by Robert.
- Even worse off is Tywin Lannister. Tywin did some truly deplorable things over the course of his life to elevate House Lannister's name, only to learn the legacy he fought for is a lie and be murdered by his dwarf son soon afterward. Now, in the rebooted timeline, not only does he Remember, but he's also forced to see how his actions and the actions of his descendants both before and after his death has ironically made the family name weaker than it ever was before now that the other great houses no longer fear him because they despise House Lannister that much more. Indeed, if it wasn't for the looming threat of the Others, they would've all happily banded together to wipe House Lannister off the map, something that his immediate family is intimately aware of. To pour even more salt in the wound, even his death was pointless. Tyrion murdered him because of the emotional abuse he endured all his life at Tywin's hands, emotional abuse that was only heaped on him because Tywin blamed him for Joanna's death. Except Tyrion wasn't responsible for Joanna's death — their maester Creylen murdered her by letting her bleed out after Tyrion was born on the orders of a conspiracy of Maesters who wanted to exploit Tywin's ruthlessness to dethrone the Targaryens. Ultimately, Tywin abused his son and then died for it for no reason.
- Harry Is a Dragon, and That's OK: All of Dobby's efforts to stop protect Harry from Voldemort's diary are even more pointless in this story than in canon, as Harry found the diary by accident and gave it to Dumbledore.
- Wish Carefully: The Death Eaters kidnapped eight young witches from different areas around the world to inject some fresh new blood into their limited gene pool, a solution that ultimately amounted to putting a bandaid on a broken leg. Lucius admits that at most, the girls only gave them a few more generations to hold off the inevitable decline, especially after the rest of the magical world made sure that they wouldn't be able to repeat the incident.
- Gaz's Horrible Halloween of Doom: After the entire Humiliation Conga that Gaz goes through trying to get her trick-or-treat candy, especially the rare Mondo Deluxe Poop Candy Bars, Samhain makes it so that she gets multiple cavities right before she can eat any of it. As a result, her father throws all the candy out so he can treat her teeth, rendering the entire night moot.
- The New Adventures of Invader Zim:
- Season 1:
- Played with in regards to the plot of Episode 5. Within the episode itself, it seems as if everything Dib went through in order to get Van Helsing's journal was pointless since the journal is useless. However, in the following chapter, the consequences of Dib's actions (the twins being assigned to be his partners partly to keep an eye on him) seriously change the story's status quo.
- The Tallest ultimately feel this way about the entirety of the season's Story Arc, as Project Domination is destroyed without them, or anyone else, getting ahold of it.
- Season 2:
- The plot of Episode 7 is kicked off by both Dib and Tak's teams trying to stop Zim from siphoning cosmic energy to use in future plans. After the resulting trip to a Mirror Universe and a fight against Dib and the twins' evil counterparts, at the end of the chapter Zim walks away with a fragment of the crystals that said evil counterparts were using to also siphon the cosmic energy, meaning that Zim got some after all.
- The entire Gambit Pileup in Episodes 10 and 11 comes to nothing, as the collision of all these plots causes them to sabotage each other. In the end, the only winners are the Resisty, and even they only manage to steal the Universe's Most Comfortable Couch, which is a far inferior goal to their original plan of a Decapitation Strike.
- Season 1:
- Ruby Pair:
- In "My Fair Tenn", Dib agrees to give up on watching Mysterious Mysteries for a year if Gaz will enter the beauty pageant in order to spy on Tenn for him, because he's convinced Tenn is entering it as part of an Evil Plan. In the end, he learns that Tenn was only competing out of pride and spite, and is despondent that he agreed to the deal for no reason.
- In "Frosting the 13th", after all of Zim and Tenn's efforts to steal Larb's holiday snacks, GIR eats them all on the way back to Earth.
- In Mean Time to Breakdown after struggling to remain positive and adapt to her new life, Iwanako finds herself back in the hospital three days later even more depressed than when she left.
- Match Ado About Nothing features Deidre Lusional, the self-proclaimed "Matchmaker", attempting to "force" Kim and Shego to get together, but her increasingly elaborate efforts amount to nothing. Trapping Kim and Shego in an icy cavern together sees Shego knock Kim out and nearly leave her to freeze before Ron shows up, Shego wants nothing to do with any potential baby after the Matchmaker impregnates Kim using a sample of Shego's DNA, and even when the Matchmaker uses a Sappho Ray to make Kim and Shego gay, they soon realise that they still aren't attracted to each other even if they like women now (Shego observes that Kim's too scrawny for her taste and Kim finds Shego's chest too big even if she wasn't also turned off by the green skin).
- The Legend of Genji: Genji spends the latter half of "The Avatar Returns" desperately trying to raise money to pay off the rent for his family's apartment. He first tries his luck at an underground fight club, only to get curb-stomped by the more experienced fighters. Seeing no other option, he accepts a shady job offer to (albeit unknowingly) smuggle explosives to a group of Bomb-Throwing Anarchists. For his help, Genji is paid with enough cash to afford his rent and returns home... only for his apartment to get destroyed during a terrorist attack. Even worse, said attack was carried out by the aforementioned anarchists using the very same bombs that he delivered to them.
- FFS, I Believe in You: In the sequel, Link, Zelda and Sidon spend considerable time and effort in searching for the recipe to the healing potion for Jabu Orkù, deciphering the archaic instructions once they find them, collecting all the ingredients, brewing the potion and getting it to Zola Province. In the end, Uisdean smashes it before they can use it, and it's revealed that it wouldn't have done any good anyway because Orkù's problem was that he was being parasitized by a barinade.
- The plot of Empire of the Pacific revolves around Lilo and Stitch traveling back in time to prevent the car crash that led to the deaths of Lilo's parents. They return to the present and eventually learn that their efforts only extended the lives of Lilo's parents by just a few mere months, as they would end up being killed by Emperor 626 (an Evil Counterpart of Stitch).
- Out of Luck: Chapter 9 and 10 show this. When the Squirrels win without Lynn around and Lincoln out of the suit, they have a Heel-Face Realization that 1: Luck has nothing to do with their achievements. and 2: Lincoln was put through hell because of their pride and superstitious beliefs...for NOTHING! Hell, even Lola admits it herself!Lola: (Mournfully) So it really was all for nothing.
- Since Really Isn't Your Fault is a Take That! towards Javi's comic, Rusty's attempt at sabotaging the relationship between Lincoln and Stella to win her over and for Lincoln allegedly breaking the promise of not pursuing Stella, not knowing that both of them have fallen in love with each other, doesn't work. His attempt is stopped by Lisa and a lot of people realize the photo is faked, but he lost his friendship with the group, his reputation and is grounded by his father.
- What is a Person Worth?: As far as Lincoln is concerned, all the nice things he did and the sacrifices he made for his sisters are now meaningless. Lincoln makes it clear to Lucy in chapter 7 had he known how she didn't hesitate to throw him under the bus like everyone else, even after everything he's done for her, not only would he have told their sisters the Princess Pony book was hers, he would have laughed at her with them. Even Lucy in chapter 14 admits that noble sacrifice Lincoln made for her is now meaningless because of her actions. Thankfully this is Subverted as the sisters earn Lincoln's forgiveness and show they do care for him and all the nice things he did for them do matter to them as they promise not to take him for granted.
- Chloé's Lament: Chloé trades away her victory as Miracle Queen for a Wish to switch places with Marinette, believing that this will make her the new world's Ladybug and grant her all the admiration and adultation she desires, while Marinette will wind up just as despised as SHE was. Unfortunately for her, it was never her position that made her so disliked, but her personality... and that doesn't change in the altered reality. Her stubborn refusal to accept the notion that her own actions were to blame for her problems leaves her without any of the perks or privileges she once enjoyed... including how being the Mayor's daughter shielded her from any serious consequences for her actions.
- Duplicity: Adrien decides to pull a Face–Heel Turn after discovering his father's Secret Identity. Unfortunately for him, the other kwami can sense whenever a Miraculous is being misused, so Tikki immediately warns Ladybug, and she promptly retrieves the Black Cat Ring from him when they meet up for patrol. It's then driven home that the only thing he accomplished was losing everyone's trust.
- Played With in The Karma of Lies. Adrien chooses to shield Lila from being exposed as a Con Artist in order to protect his own selfish interests; he thought telling his friends the truth might hurt his reputation like it did Marinette's, and threaten his comfortable status quo. Ultimately, this has massive ramifications when his Karma Houdini Warranty runs out and he finds himself being hit by her Laser-Guided Karma as well. But he does achieve his original goal of protecting her, just not the intent behind it.
- Miraculous Ladybug Salt-Shots:
- A Price to Pay has Adrien betray Ladybug after learning his father is Hawkmoth, convinced that once Gabriel makes his Wish, he'll get everything he wants: his mother will be back, his family fixed, and reality will be retconned so that nobody will remember Hawkmoth's reign of terror. And surely, surely Marinette will be forced to love him! But nothing works out the way he'd assumed — yes, Emilie is brought back, while Tom Dupain-Cheng dies in her place... in a car accident Gabriel caused. And while Gabriel bribes his way out of legal consequences, everyone still sees him as a murderer... including Emilie, who divorces him and disowns Adrien for defending his father's actions. Oh, and Marinette remembers the original reality, so she knows he's completely to blame for her father's death. Not only did he not get anything that he wanted, Adrien realizes that his Control Freak father is likely to take out his frustrations over not getting what he wanted out on him...
- In It Was Always You, Alya, Marinette never had any feelings for Adrien; instead, she developed a crush on Alya after the New Transfer Student defended her from Chloé. When Alya pestered her to confess having feelings for somebody, she blurted out Adrien's name. By the time the truth finally comes out, Marinette's crush has long since faded due to a combination of Alya overwritting her wishes and constantly pushing her towards Adrien, no matter how many times she asked her to stop, and her shoddy treatment of Marinette over the whole Lila situation. Marinette reflects that the girl she thought Alya was never existed, and that everything she did to preserve their friendship was pointless.
- Masked Hearts has Adrien going steady with Kagami for two years, yet he never gives up his dogged pursuit of Ladybug, even when she knows he's dating somebody as a civilian (as he told her in hopes of making her jealous). Once Hawkmoth is defeated, Adrien immediately reveals his secret identity in public and asks Ladybug out, in front of a crowd of witnesses that includes Kagami. Both girls are utterly disgusted and call him out on effectively throwing his relationship with Kagami away because he couldn't take no for an answer.
- Rate This (Trust is Hard to Come By): Alya and everyone save Chloé Easily Condemned Marinette on Lila's say-so; Adrien knew that Lila was lying, but let her go unchallenged because he didn't consider Marinette to be worth the trouble of defending. When the akuma Gardener reveals just how little Ladybug trusts anyone in their class, Chloé explains Marinette's high rating as evidence that she's friends with Ladybug, reminding Alya how Marinette helped her land her first interview with the superheroine. Alya and the others insist they only turned on her because she was "bullying" Lila... and then Lila shows up sporting an impressively low score that's deep in the negatives. Alya breaks down sobbing as she realizes that she'd sacrificed her friendship with Ladybug's real "best friend" for a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, giving up all the "perks" that entailed in exchange for fool's gold.
- Scarlet Lady:
- Played for Laughs during "Dark Cupid": Chloé shoves Marigold in front of her 'signed Adrien poster' in order to protect it, getting her shot by his hate-inducing arrows. Marigold then promptly destroys the poster herself.
- Gabriel invested months into planning how he would take advantage of Audrey's return to Paris, convincing himself that she'd make his strongest akuma yet and would ensure his victory. After Style Queen ultimately fails, he's visibly struggling to hold himself together, which is misinterpreted by others as concern over how the akuma had attacked Adrien.
- After the main events of "Queen Wasp", Zoé laments to Marinette that both she and Chloé emulated their mother to try and earn her attention. Yet Audrey still barely acknowledges either of them, constantly getting their names wrong and acting like they're not "exceptional" enough to be worth her time. All their efforts accomplished was turning Chloé into a Spoiled Brat while leaving Zoé unsure of who she is Beneath the Mask.
- Truth and Consequences: Marinette makes a deal with Hawkmoth after discovering his Secret Identity in the hopes of protecting Adrien from the Awful Truth. Eventually, she realizes that this was a horrible mistake, and even trying to correct it at that juncture will likely still lead to her losing everything she held dear.
- Two Letters plays with this. During the "Mega Leech" incident, everyone fought to protect Place des Vosges from being bulldozed for one of Mayor Bourgois' vanity projects. While passing by the park, Luka realizes that many of the park's trees have been removed and areas cordoned off, and unhappily assumes that the Mayor broke his promise and is building the artificial-oxygen tower after all. However, it turns out that the construction is related to an entirely different project: a massive monument honoring the new Ladybug. While the effect is much the same, Marinette doesn't seem bothered, having Stopped Caring to the point that she seems almost amused by the irony.
- The Two of Us starts with Marinette having financial problems, and Adrien offering a Marriage of Convenience to make it easier for her to secure a student loan. After all the trouble they go to (a lot, considering whose son we are talking about), it turns out that the financial aid is per household, not individual, meaning the wife of a man as wealthy as an Agreste isn't eligible.
- Weight Off Your Shoulder: After she's captured by the heroes, Future!Alix pleads with Fluff that they have to help her out. Everything she's done was with the singular intent of creating a "perfect timeline" where Marinette and Adrien got together, just like Alya and the girl squad wanted. They can't let all of that be for nothing...!
- The Wolves in the Woods:
- Lila lied about knowing lots of famous people to impress her new classmates, and pretended Marinette was bullying her so the others wouldn't believe her Cassandra Truth. But she severely underestimated how cruel her new classmates could get, and they turned on Marinette so badly that she was forced to transfer away. Lila finds herself surrounded by Fair-Weather Friends who expect her to become their new 'everyday Ladybug', using her supposed connections for their benefit while offering nothing in return. And given how swiftly they turned on Marinette, the only thing protecting her from the same fate are her paper-thin lies...
- Apart from Juleka and Nathaniel, Bustier's whole class turned on Marinette in hopes of impressing Lila and earning her favor, unaware that she didn't actually know any celebrities. Their continued harassment after Marinette transfers out of Francoise Dupont gets them banned from the Dupain-Cheng bakery, along with their parents being alerted, which leads to them getting grounded and barred from their favorite activities. Then they eventually learn that it was all founded on lies, and they're facing legal woes as well.
- Adrien ignored Marinette's suffering out of the belief that everything would eventually go back to normal. After the trial, he's forced to face the reality that Nothing Is the Same Anymore - Marinette won't be returning to school, nor will Ms. Bustier. Neither will he, for that matter, as his father forces him back into homeschooling after hearing his testimony, which got him busted for criminal defamation due to how he continued blaming Marinette for everything despite knowing that Lila had been lying.
- Alya feared that Marinette's successes as a fashion designer would result in her leaving her behind as her star continued to rise. So she took advantage of the Lila situation to try cutting her down, aiming to wreck her self-esteem and ensure she'd stick around. Instead, Marinette transfers to St. Catherine's to get away from the bullying, leaving Alya behind and refusing to accept that she drove her 'best friend' away.
- Crimson and Emerald: Endeavor went through deplorable lengths to surpass All Might, including using his family as his stepping stones. It's all for naught; his negative qualities drop him to Number Three with his recklessness making it difficult to get back to Number Two, making becoming Number One to be even more of a pipe dream. His treatment of his family is so horrible that it drives the other genuinely heroic characters like Hawks, All Might and Inko to intervene to save his family from him. So, Endeavor no longer possesses his "perfect tool" Shouto and has to pay restitution to the family he neglected and abused, while the more popular Hawks is being groomed to be All Might's immediate successor as Number One hero. All his children hate and fear him. His reputation with the both the public and fellow Top Ten heroes is the toilet. Everything he worked for has amounted to nothing.
- One for All and Eight for the Ninth: All for One has Izuku kidnapped so he can steal One for All from him, only for Izuku to turn the tables and steal eleven Quirks from him, as well as destroying another twenty-three. One of the Quirks Izuku steals is Overhaul, which All for One had stolen earlier but at the cost of getting his hands so malformed he was unable to use the Quirk. It then gets worse when the heroes track him down: most of the villains he had recruited are arrested, and he himself fails to make use of his plans to demoralize All Might before the latter leaves him quadriplegic and arrests him.
- Peace's Apprentice: Aizawa expels Izuku specifically so he can enroll his personal student, Shinsou, in the Hero Course. During the attack on the USJ, Shinsou is so busy mocking his classmates that a villain gets the drop on him and badly electrocutes him, leaving his throat so severely burnt that he can never safely use his quirk again.
- Rise of the Last Villain: Izuku scores 43 villain points and 50 hero points during the UA entrance exam, but is ultimately refused entry into the Hero Course because he's quirkless.
- Sleeper Hit AU:
- After training extensively and managing to pass U.A.'s grueling Entrance Exam despite being Quirkless, Izuku shows up for his first day... and gets expelled by Aizawa, who casually outs him as Quirkless while declaring that he's got absolutely no potential as a Pro Hero. While he eventually finds another school willing to take him in, all his work to get into U.A. came to naught.
- Aizawa deliberately fudged the results of his assessment in order to boot Midoriya out so that he could ensure there was a space open in the Hero Course for his protégé Shinsou. By the time the Sports Festival rolls around and Shinsou is able to prove his merit, more vacancies have opened up due to Asui and Mineta being killed by the League's USJ assault.
- Izuku doesn't come forward with proof of how Katsuki bullied him since childhood because he doesn't want to risk tainting All Might's legacy. All Might sacrificed much in order to save him in the Kamino incident, and Izuku fears that exposing King Nitro as a Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up would make those efforts pointless. In the end, Bakugou loses his license for attacking his fellow heroes anyway.
- Whispered Tribulation: Aizawa is so convinced that Midoriya Izuku must be The Mole that he and two other teachers ambush and kidnap the boy, dragging him into an interrogation room with the intent of breaking his will and forcing a confession. They bank everything on proving that his instincts were right... but he was dead wrong. Izuku is completely innocent, and they've thrown their careers away for nothing.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- A Brief History of Equestria: Princess Platinum does everything in her power — up to and including orchestrating her own death — to rid Equestria of the monarchy. Her efforts will ultimately be for naught when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are crowned co-rulers of Equestria.
- How I Lost My Mother: Princess Celestia foresees a vision telling her that her daughter could destroy Equestria "if her heart is pained by magic". Not wanting to bring about an apocalypse through inaction or kill her only child to prevent this from happening, Celestia Takes a Third Option and seals away her daughters' magic while at the same time erasing all memory of her from the public before banishing her from Canterlot. Unfortunately, thinking that her daughter would just live on her own somewhere else; she winds up losing her sanity from her loneliness due to being unable to contact her closest friends ever again, especially after finding out that Celestia had her regrets of doing this after figuring out that she possibly made a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy by throwing her only child out, and instead of being reasonable and admitting her fault, Celestia doubles-down and turns Twilight Sparkle into a Princess to fill in the hole she made. Years later, Celestia's outcast daughter, now having fully lost her sanity, makes her way back to Canterlot; having rediscovered the Magic that her mother had stolen from her, and blasts the city apart, and demonstrates firsthoof the immense power that she possesses: by overwhelming Celestia, Luna, and Discord who were trying to use their magic in order to turn her into Stone: a fate that she delivers unto the latter for attempting to manipulate her into his own ends for Twilight Sparkle, while at the same time stripping Celestia of her own Alicorn Powers the same way she did to her only child a decade ago. Oh, I forgot to mention who exactly is Celestia's daughter in the story: Cozy Glow.
- Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison:
- Ino and Sakura broke off their friendship since both were interested in the same boy: Sasuke. During a sparring session at the Academy, Sasuke is pitted against Sakura, takes a couple hits before curb-stomping her, then delivers a blistering Breaking Speech about how the pink-haired girl will never amount to anything more than glorified Cannon Fodder. With Sakura's hopes of ever catching his eye thoroughly crushed alongside her crush, she rededicates herself to proving her worth by aiming to become a jounin... and makes no move to rekindle their friendship, leaving Ino questioning if they threw it away for nothing.
- In the sequel, Inoichi reprimands Ishino for illegally Mind Walking Sakura... not just because he violated the rules, but because he didn't even get any worthwhile information out of it to "justify" what he'd done, risking their reputation for nothing.
- Doing It Right This Time: When Rei meets Gendo for the first time after travelling to the past, she slaps him and informs him all of his planning was for nothing because he would fail. Gendo was pretty... shaken afterwards.Shinji: Figures. How much did you actually tell my father, anyway?
Rei: Few details. Only that everything he had worked towards and everything he had put myself and his only son through had been for nothing, and that he would die alone and unmourned, rejected by the only person he had ever truly loved. [...] It was... cathartic. - Ghosts of Evangelion: After Shinji explains why Yui left, Gendo comes to the realization that his whole plan was for nothing.Gendo leaned back in his chair. "All for nothing," he whispered. He looked at Shinji, a hint of regret in his eyes, then looked away.
- The One I Love Is...: In one of the side-stories Gendo admits all he has done, all lives he has ruined -including his son and daughter's- and all blood he has shed... has been for nothing, since he has failed: he has been unable to free his wife and they will never be together again.
- Scar Tissue: After returning from Instrumentality, Gendo reflects all he did to reunite with his wife -which includes abusing and torturing his children emotionally and ending the world- was completely useless and meaningless, since Yui chose to remain inside Unit 01 rather merging with everyone into Instrumentality.
- In The Second Try, when Gendo interrogates his son, Shinji warns him that all his scheming and planning would be for nothing since everyone will die and Yui will never come back to him. Gendo refuses to believe it, but when he realizes that Shinji is right, he tries to kill himself.
- The premise of Shards of me, too sharp to put back together is that Black Mask's years-long plot for revenge against Masayoshi Shido is rendered pointless when Shido cracks his skull on the pavement in a drunken stupor and dies ignobly. He also takes it very poorly when fate leads to him becoming a founding member of the Phantom Thieves, changing Kamoshida's heart, and realizing that he could have had his revenge without taking a single life.
- In Hearts of Ice, Cologne goes to extreme lengths to ensure that Shampoo gets married to Ranma: blood magic, manipulation, brain-washing, attempted murders... until Ranma gets killed as a result of her schemes. Whereupon, Cologne decides her efforts have been worthless, and she just wants to go back home.
- In With Strings Attached, the entire quest is bullshit. The original motive for sending the four after the Vasyn pieces was simply Jeft giving them something to do; the curse that the Vasyn was supposed to remove didn't really exist; and while change was accidentally effected by the restoration of the Vasyn, there's no guarantee that it was actually good. However, the four were never told any of this (except the curse part), so they didn't complain.
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness:
- Throughout Act III, Akua and Kahlua willingly work for Kiria and aid him in his plan to rewrite history with the Chrono Displacement spell, going to such lengths as stealing said spell from their father's secret archive, turning themselves into hybrids with Alucard's blood, and killing numerous innocents, because they hoped to make Issa one of the top rulers of the new world that Kiria intended to create. They're naturally horrified when they discover that they were nothing but Kiria's Unwitting Pawns and that part of his Evil Plan would have involved having the two infected with Blackheart and sent back in time to destroy Issa's empire from within so he would be the strongest monster of them all, which is anything but what they wanted: they spend the entirety of Act IV trying to atone for their actions. To further drive the nail in, Kiria's plan was doomed to fail from the start, as if Tsukune and the others had fallen, Luna would have killed Kiria herself and then let the Chrono Displacement spell go critical and destroy everything in a fit of madness.
- During the final chapters of Act V, the actions of Babylon's minions lead the HDA to declare war on monsters, leading them to arrest and quarantine any monster they can find and drive the dark lords out of the human world. After some events, however, they realize by Act VI chapter 52 that their efforts were in vain; Babylon had been targeting the monster world all along, and the humans were unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.
- Ruby and Nora: Everything Ozpin and Pyrrha tried to prevent over the course of their stories ultimately fail.
- White Sheep: Played for Laughs. All of Cinder's evil plans, utilizing Grimm, terrorists, criminals, hacking, and murder... they all fall apart when she's barely started putting everything into the final stages. How? Her little brother Jaune managed to convince Ozpin that Cinder was the best person to inherit the power she was seeking. Her plans were unnecessary because everything was being handed to her on a silver platter. She ends up sitting in her room with a Thousand-Yard Stare for hours.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong
- SV Wishes: Yue Qingyuan breaks a decade-long promise to Shen Qingqiu to be monogamous that was the bedrock of his marriage to give into social pressure and take another spouse to raise his status. Not only did that earned him further mockery of the court, it destroys what was a previously harmonious relationship and ruins the lives of everyone involved.
- Robb Returns:
- Ser Willem Bootle's attempt to pay back his debt to Collyns winds up being for naught, as Collyns had been executed as an associate of Littlefinger. This means that Bootle murdered Lord Surestone, seized his property, and tried to force Dacey Surestone into prostitution for nothing, and it only buys him death by incineration via the Fist of Winter.
- Hearing Cersei's interpretation of Maggy the Frog's prophecy, if it could even be called that, causes Tyrion to realize just how incompetent his sister really is. "Valonqar" has several meaningsnote , assuming she didn't actually hear "Valongar"note . Even assuming for a moment that Maggy was right, then Jaime could have been the one she should have feared, as he is the middle child and her direct younger sibling. In other words, Cersei killed someone and tormented Tyrion his entire life because she couldn't be bothered to check up on her vocabulary and grammar.
- My Super Best Friend: Kyle realizes that his crusade against Canada resulting in the country getting nuked amounted to this, after Nichole told Kyle the girls decided to ignore his warning and mocked Heidi for dating Cartman anyway and that it was the real reason why Heidi got back together with Cartman and became his Distaff Counterpart.
- Some Things Never Change:
- Squidward's attempts to defeat his rival Squilliam end up being worth nothing in the end, as he's still ultimately a lowly cashier with only brief flashes of glory and remembered by most as an unpleasant loser and grouch, while Squilliam would go down in history as a Renaissance Man with fame, glory, society forever remembering him for his accomplishments, and all of his negative qualities swept under the rug. What's worse is Squidward realized this far too late in his life, and how much his own ego, envy and jealousy clouded his judgment on the matter until he could no longer change his path.
- Plankton's ultimate goal of stealing the Krabby Patty Formula is rendered fruitless without him even knowing since Squidward internally notes offhandedly that the Krabby Patty Formula doesn't exist at all, instead being a marketing campaign by Mr. Krabs in order to give his food a mystical quality without actually doing anything to the burger. It's only further amplified when after yet another failed attempt, Plankton ends up dead from his body degrading due to bugs in his experiments, leaving him a complete failure to the end.
- Total Drama What If Series: The Screaming Gaffers fell into despair after the war challenge since all they fought for was a treasure of Anne Maria's hairspray.
- Riding a Sunset: Dr. Arkeville betrays the trust that the Autobots have placed in Sector 7 and steals some of Wheeljack's tools and inventions. When he's discovered, all he manages to get away with (after everything else he stole was reclaimed by the Autobots and government) is a cloaking device and several dangerous-looking devices. He's wanted by the government and the Cybertronians for his actions, and will likely have to go into hiding. Those potential weapons he stole? They weren't weapons; they were fireworks that Wheeljack had whipped up for the Fourth of July.
- In Shatterheart R!Syaoran attempts to reach out to others, endure his friends' apathy, learn not to isolate himself in his room and find some happiness for himself. Then he backslides when Kurogane ends their relationship when he becomes too attached and Syaoran is more miserable than before.
- Underverse: Cross and X-Event!Chara's attempt to fix their world and make it their own fails spectacularly. Not only does the quarantine on all the Universes they have been in undo everything that they've stolen, but Ink brings back XGaster, who takes back the other half of his soul and puts X-Event!Chara back in his place.
- In With This Ring Paul merges with the Ophidian to save his surviving friends and Earth from an Alien Invasion during its Darkest Hour, only to find it was never real and no one was in danger.
